I hope you don’t mind receiving this out of the blue! I’ve been thinking of doing an email to friends for a while now. The end of the year seemed like a good time to do a bit of reflection. And I wanted to be upbeat about things, because I have been and am very lucky and gifted. I read other people’s lists of things that “made” their year and I liked that idea and wanted to do my own. Despite being a day late, which I also hope you won’t mind.
I prefer not to write in list form generally, but a gratitude list or a best-of definitely seems to call for bullet points. I hope to write some more posts in 2023, and they’ll probably be more long form, maybe even thoughtful, but for my first post this is what I got for ya. These are some of what made 2022 good:
Journaling, aka morning pages. I start each day with coffee, a sun salutation, my meds, and three pages of longhand, dumbass thoughts. You can read all about it in The Artist's Way. She explains it just fine; all I will add here is it really does seem to help.
Intermittent fasting. I eat between noon and 8pm, and I’ve been pretty strict but not insane, and I’ve been able to keep it up! I tried it in the past but couldn’t quite get stuck into it - I was too hungry and impatient. But someone recommended Delay, Don't Deny: Living an Intermittent Fasting Lifestyle and I read it. Somehow this book, with its pleasing insistence on linking out to actual science, along with its very gentle mental approach, helped me get started this year. And yeah, it took a few weeks before I didn’t mind being hungry so much.
Ozempic: I fought with the insurance company, but only once my blood sugar was in the prediabetic range did they approve me for this drug, which costs upward of $1000 for each injector thing (which I think is about a month’s supply). Wow. I mean! Screw the insurance companies, the rent seekers, the man with his hand out. This is a healing potion but they made it very hard to get at it. With it, I don’t need a second helping. I just don’t want to eat as much.
Getting laid off in June, aka being retired. I’ll write about this more another time. There’s a lot to say.
Pottery! Even though I was an art major, I didn’t have enough electives left to take it, yes this made no sense. And I always wanted to, and somehow I never got around to it in all the years since college. Until now…
There is something about this activity that worked for me from the very start. I love the gelid feel of the clay, I feel like I sort of “got” the wheel at least somewhat right away. Don’t get me wrong, I’m no prodigy (for one thing, I’m too old). You can see from the above that I manage to suck at it quite frequently. There’s a big difference between throwing even 1 1/4 pounds of clay and 1 1/2; the above was 1 1/2 and I was trying to push myself and frankly really struggling. And sometimes, when it’s not working at all, it’s incredibly frustrating. But other times it feels amazing.
Walking regularly, I was going as often as 5x a week in the warmer weather, but I’ve slacked off a bit in the cold. I got really wimpy and skipped the entire bomb cyclone week altogether.
👉 I love MapMyWalk! I know Google is following me wherever I go, but I like to pretend that it’s not by using this other app instead to track my walking progress.
👉 In November, I did a 30-in-30 challenge and walked every day. I thought this would be easier than it was: There was something, well, really challenging in having to do it every single day. The last day of the month it was pouring rain but I was determined to get my 30 day achievement. I put plastic bags on my feet over my socks, inside my Allbirds, and went out and got absolutely soaked.Doing the NY Times crossword every night with Adam. The app resets our record every so often due to some technical glitch, but we have been faithfully, consistently doing it (I swear). Our streak is upward of three years, maybe more by now.
My dad moving to New Canaan! I am happy he is close to my brother and me. He, my sister, and I are much relieved at being in closer contact with him. By the way…
👉 He would very much like to sell his house in PA as soon as possible. If you know someone looking to buy a beautiful stately home in Sewickley (near Pittsburgh), please let me know.Going to Rhinebeck, aka New York State Sheep & Wool Festival with Adam and Beth. And I managed not to buy anything except some fantastic hand cream.
Regular knit night with Beth and Hilary, which led to finally getting past the dead year of no interest in knitting and spinning. I don’t know what caused this but it gave me a lot of grief and confusion and kind of an identity crisis. During this fallow period sometimes I just hung out on Zoom with B & H and talked to them while they knit.
Naps without guilt
Freecycle to clean out my basement, the side of the street to clean out my garage
Getting off Twitter. F that insane clown Elon Musk
Googycon, my husband's eponymous D&D convention. This is his thing, but I helped out by doing copying, putting maps together, and booking a meeting room for it at a local hotel … and I got a tee shirt!
Travel
Iceland with my knitting gals! I never did a trip with friends before, and this was sublime.
We went all the places and did all the things my husband wasn’t excited about but we were because we are knitting nerds.
👉 My husband went to Sayulita, Mexico, with an all boys getaway, while we were in Iceland. We each dodged a bullet!
Montreal for Just for Laughs - this was our fourth time going, I think? This was a weird trip because it was also a bachelor party for our friends Pete and Pedro (separate weddings), and that made it a bit more bacchanalian for some than even normal. Way strongest of the comedians we saw was James Acaster - I have never laughed so hard in my life (without drugs) as I did at his show.
Chicago for an amazing memorial for my college best friend's mother.
Birmingham for my nephew’s high school graduation.
Sicily … Maybe I’ll write more about this another time. Interesting trip!
Upstate New York for Pete and Melissa’s wedding.
There was lots more (TV, movies, books), but…
Substack said it was way too long! I’ll send the TV, Movies, and Books (more lists) soon in a separate post.
If you don’t want to receive this in the future, please feel free to unsubscribe. Not everything is for everybody. I’ll love you anyway.